


you can choose your friends. . .

by pelinal



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Gen, it's tagged gen bc the inq/sera is really more in the background, more dorian/toni friendship moments bc..........weakness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-25
Updated: 2018-02-25
Packaged: 2019-03-23 22:27:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13797639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pelinal/pseuds/pelinal
Summary: "Oh, how very practical. My bullheaded father and I are your. . .test subjects.""No!" Toni gasps, and it's so earnest Dorian nearly laughs out of shock. "I honestly want you to succeed here, and. . .I want you to make peace with your family. I just," she sobs (sobs! Antonia Trevelyan! Sobs!), "I'm afraid, and I need to see someone else live through it."





	you can choose your friends. . .

"Well. That may have been the first time I ever heard you curse." Dorian shakes his head. "I didn't even recognize a few of those."  
  
"Perhaps not." Toni circles her hands around in the muck, trying to find purchase. "Some were Orlesian. It is an old habit. And I believe my leg's broken."  
  
Sera rockets into the scene, out of breath, and immediately kneels down next to Toni. Never mind her custom-made and surprisingly tasteful armor.  
  
"Oh, Sera, your clothes. . ."  
  
"You should see you, Buckles." Sera puts out her wiry arms and pulls Toni upright—the poor girl collapses almost right away. "No! 'Draste's arse, sorry! That was stupid! All right, Toni?"  
  
"Yes," Toni says, with an admirable evenness. Truly—that girl could endure agony until the sun burned out, all without batting an eyelash. It's worse now that she's with Sera, of course, doesn't want to worry her. And Maker's blood, how Sera worries.  
  
"Liar!" Sera yells. "I hurt you! What is it? Your leg?"  
  
"Yes, and it's fine. Sera, it is. I only need to get back to camp and rest."  
  
"No walking without standing," Cole points out helpfully, appearing out of thin air. "Ma—ker's— _breath_ it hurts—deep and drumming, distant—how helpless we are at the snap of a twig."  
  
"Cole," says Toni calmly, even as Sera verges on tears. "Now is not the time."  
  
"You!" Sera turns her big, accusing eyes on Dorian. "Can't you bloody mix up a porridge or do a spell or something?"  
  
No. "I. . .no, not really. Healing's not my forte."  
  
Sera rolls her eyes, and Dorian settles for retrieving Antonia's lovingly burnished greatsword from wherever it flew off to.  Eventually, the incantation for the single ice spell he knows reoccurs to him and he maintains a sort of cooling mist around Toni's injured leg until they reach camp.  
  
After the healer finishes, voices start to ring out from Toni and Sera's shared tent.  
  
"You know if we had Vivvy she'd have fixed it right away. What kind of a poncy mage can't do healing? What arseflip thinks 'ah yes, raising fuckin' corpses from the dead and blowin' things up from a hundred feet away is well enough! Who needs to help people when I can frighten and hurt 'em!'"  
  
"Every mage has different strengths," Toni soothes. She's too good; she's _defending_ him!. Dorian hates it. It makes him think what a little bastard he was at her age. He listens in again. ". . .wouldn't expect me to start picking locks and shooting arrows, would you? Just as I don't expect you to start slaughtering people with a greataxe."  
  
"That's blinkin' apples and oranges though! Me and a mage. Me and Bull. Me and you."  
  
"The point is, I'm fine. And the Inquisition healers will have me on my feet very soon. I love you for worrying, but there isn't any need." There's a pause and he imagines her breathing out, pained and slow. "Would you grab Dorian for me please, before this weird tea puts me to sleep?"  
  
Sera's head appears between the tent flaps. " _Oi, Dori_ —oh. There." She eyes him. "Buckles wants you for something."  
  
"And who am I to deny the lady Inquisitor my comforting visage in her time of need?" Dorian stands up, smoothing out his pristine robes—if there's one thing to take heart in, he's kept himself rather free of muck. And just as well; to have to petition the Inquisition for new artisanal bolts of Tevinter samite would be a finishing blow to his pride.  
  
Sera ignores him completely and amuses herself by sticking nearby debris in the campfire and seeing what catches.  
  
"You require my presence, Lady Trevelyan?" he booms importantly, entering the tent. Hopefully their melodramatic little routine brings a smile to her face.  
  
"Kind of you to oblige, Lord Pavus." Antonia giggles. She looks far better now in a clean cotton shirt and trousers, the broken leg trussed up with bandages. She even graces him with a small, tired smile. "I don't want you to call off your meeting in Redcliffe because of this."  
  
"You're not suggesting I go alone? Heaven help us if this retainer were to conk me on the head and drag me back home! You'd never see me again!"  
  
"Dorian."  
  
"Of course, I might mysteriously reappear as a red-blooded Tevinter boy with a healthy appetite for women and no mind of his own."  
  
" _Dorian._ " Toni holds up a desperate hand to make her point. "I'm not suggesting you go alone. Sera and Cole are more than a match for anything or anyone you might encounter."  
  
"Be that as it may." Dorian deigns to sit down in the crudely-hewn wooden chair at the foot of Toni's bed. "I'd prefer to have a diplomatic voice there with me. And a seven-foot greatsword never hurts."  
  
"That's not an option. We can't send for any mage healers and expect them to arrive in time. And I can't defend my _self_ in this state, let alone you from whoever your father may have sent. Just make it clear to them not to make a move unless on your signal, and I promise you it will be fine."  
  
"'Fine'. No situation is ever truly doomed until Antonia Trevelyan refers to it as 'fine'."  
  
"Listen. I wish I could come with you, Dorian. But I have complete faith in your abilities, and Sera's, and Cole's. And please don't forget you may always tell this retainer to go and. . .well. You may always tell him 'no'." Toni sighs, trying to fight the drooping of her eyelids. "But I believe. . .there is far more to lose in not going."  
  
"Pray then, when have you scheduled the tearful reconciliation with your family?" Dorian snaps.  
  
"All _right_. I'm fully aware of my. . .hypocrisy in asking this of you. But to answer your question. . .well. They must know about Sera by this point." Toni sighs again, a long, exhausted exhalation. "I've received no correspondence from them, nor have I reached out personally. I can't bring myself to care."  
  
"Antonia—"  
  
Toni continues, her eyes bright with tears. "If it pleases you to hear it, yes. My reasons for agreeing to this are selfish in part. I'm _terrified_ of the confrontation with my family. . .but I have to believe that by the will of our Lady they'll embrace me as I am. By the will of Andraste, your father may too see sense."  
  
"Oh, how very practical. My bullheaded father and I are your. . .test subjects."  
  
"No!" Toni gasps, and it's so earnest Dorian nearly laughs out of shock. "I honestly want you to succeed here, and. . .I want you to make peace with your family. I just," she sobs (sobs! Antonia Trevelyan! _Sobs!_ ), "I'm afraid, and I need to see someone else live through it."  
  
"Live through it." Dorian strokes his mustache theatrically. "Not 'succeed', just survive. That does take some of the pressure off."  
  
"I think. . ." Toni sniffs messily, "surviving is succeeding."  
  
"Quite."  
  
"Then you'll go?" she grins, still weepy, but looking for all the world like a delighted child.  
  
Dorian stands. "Maker deliver me. I'll ask Sera not to wake you when we leave in the morning; frankly, you need your beauty sleep."  
  
Taking his advice to heart, Antonia promptly falls asleep.

 

* * *

  
  
  
"So who's this retrainer we're carking?" Sera asks, picking at the bowstring drawn across her chest.  
  
"Re _tain_ er. And, ideally, we won’t be 'carking' anyone."  
  
"What's the fun then?"  
  
Dorian runs his hands through his hair. "Look. This is all really very simple. I enter the tavern, talk to the man, and come out. It could be that I'll go with him from there, and you and Cole will be free to return to camp. If not, we'll go back to camp as a group. Does that sound easy enough?"  
  
"Easy, sure. Fun? No. Could have asked a couple Inquisition soldiers if you just wanted to talk to some arsehole in Redcliffe, right?"  
  
"In theory."  
  
"But you wanted Buckles along. And she brought who _she_ wanted along."  
  
"It is a personal matter, and I'd appreciate it if you'd stop harassing me about it."  
  
"Yeah," Sera scrapes something out from between her bottom teeth. "Just don't like to go in not knowing the nob from my left arsecheek. Give you the shakes, that will."  
  
"Surprises. Slinking, shrinking; sink into sleep, escape, shrieking always. Bright and alight and adrift from the world, beginning to end. Being a right tit at times, but can't help it. They don't ever understand." Cole breathes. "I don't think this will be like those times, Sera."  
  
"Shut it, creepy."  
  
"Sorry."  
  
Dorian puts his face in his hands. All of his bravado is ebbing now that Redcliffe village unfolds itself before them, colorful and dotted with people. "For whatever it's worth, you both have my gratitude."  
  
"S'pose if that was enough for Buckles," Sera mutters. "Fingers crossed I get to turn a couple tossers into pincushions, though."  
  
"I'm tempted to agree," says Dorian lightly, trying to will away his nausea.  
  
They come up on the tavern and Cole stops short, frowning deeply. " _Kaffas_. What a pit. Dreary, dripping—primitive and. Ugh. Pungent."  
  
Dorian swears he recognizes the lilting voice of his father, or an attempt by Cole at the emulation thereof. ". . .What was that now, Cole?"  
  
"Oh, proud old man. Pompous and pampered. Have resilience, Halward, and resolve. Not here for luxury. Live and leave. Let him come. Draped in dread, thorned, mourning, reticent. Radiant. We wait," Cole finishes—with a greater sadness in his voice than the boy has any right to.  
  
"I see," Dorian says, in a very small voice.  
  
"What, don't want to go in now? Because creepy said some silly shite again?" Sera appears genuinely concerned. She slaps her bony palm bravely onto the oaken door and pushes. "Look, I'll even do it."  
  
"Sera, there's really no need for—" he sputters, but it's too late. He's come face to face with Halward Pavus.  
  
Father motions for him to enter.  
  
Sera looks back at Dorian and jabs her free thumb to indicate Pavus. "This your retrainer nob?"  
  
"Better," Dorian spits.  
  
Bless her, Sera seems to sense the change of plan and invites herself inside, folding her arms defiantly. She drags Cole in, too, by his forearm.  
  
"Friends of yours?" says Pavus eventually, in his carefully measured voice.  
  
"Er. Guards."  
  
"Truly." Father looks profoundly unimpressed—though, in all fairness, that is his default state of being. The old man sighs heavily. "If that eases your mind."  
  
"Was there something you wanted from me?"  
  
"Dorian. Please. I am not your enemy, nor this some wartime negotiation."  
  
"Naturally. In my time here I'd almost forgotten how very close you and I were!" Dorian waves an airy hand. "All the attempted brainwashing was simply a bit of father-son playfulness, of course."  
  
" _Brain_ washing?" Sera blurts. "Like magic?"  
  
"Like chalk, chimes. Ceremony and. . .crutch. Content to cut out the cancer at any crimson cost. It is a soundless simony—a violence, stifling speech," Cole clarifies.  
  
"Hang on—blood magic?" Her eyes bulge fit to burst from their sockets. Dorian gives her a tight affirmative nod.  
  
"Your. . .guards are certainly talkative," says Pavus through his teeth, "would it not be best—?"  
  
"You old tit, you used blood magic on him! Can't say shite-all now!" Sera stamps her foot. "Unless with magic. Don't let him," she implores Dorian.  
  
"Silence!" Pavus explodes, and strides right up to Sera. Satisfyingly, her lanky form towers over him just as she does over Dorian. "I have made a most grueling journey to speak with my son, elf, and you will speak when spoken to or leave my sight."  
  
"If she leaves, I leave with her, Father, and on my _soul,_  you'll never see me again."  
  
Sera blows the world's fattest raspberry for emphasis. Bless her. "This your dad, then?" She looks down her nose at Pavus. "Feels sort of lucky growing up how I did now. Yours is an arse, Buckles' is an arse—bet you mine too, right?"  
  
Father interrupts her sniggering with a thunderous "I will not be disrespected!"  
  
"You know you're free to walk away at any time, Father?" It's an honest reminder.  
  
Pavus' face contorts with desperation at the word 'father'. Curious. "Dorian, please. I wish to speak frankly and respectfully with you." He glares at Sera. "And—privately."  
  
"And I'm granting you all but one of those terms." Dorian tents his fingers. "So will you frankly and respectfully explain to me what reason there could _possibly_ be for me to trust a man who intended to use blood magic on me."  
  
"Why?" Sera exclaims. "Sorry," she adds, glancing at Dorian, "shutting up after this, and not if you don't want to say. Just fuckin' why? Blood magic? On your—!"  
  
"Names like bricks, citadels, carved, stacked. Packed on the precipice of power—"  
  
"Enough! It is not your concern, nor that of this. . .odd young man."  
  
"Cole," says Cole.  
  
"Charmed. Now," The lord magister turns to his son. "My decision was a calculated one, meant only to—"  
  
"My mother and father, Sera, considered my preference for men an obstacle. A roadblock on the way to true influence." It's as though he's watching himself as an outside observer, delivering a monologue in an Orlesian stage play. Sans mask. "My father, in his brilliance, had a plan to. . .fix the issue. A plan which was as likely to kill me or take my mind as it was to succeed in its goal, but an admirable effort all the same," Dorian smiles shakily and tries not to raise his voice.  
  
" _That's_ it?" Sera gasps. "You piss-farming blood drinker shitearse piece of fuckin’—" She throws herself at Pavus, red-faced and lost for words in her pure, confused rage.  
  
The lord magister, accustomed to sudden attacks against his person, throws up a barrier in his own defense. What registers only a moment later is that Dorian has put one up for him as well, on a simple mindless reflex.  
  
To her credit, Sera didn't skitter off at the first little spell as she always does. She's actually trying to claw through with her bare hands. Dorian pulls her back by her shoulders. "Make no mistake, Sera, I'm touched by your righteous anger, but I'd like to leave here without any casualties. All right?"  
  
"No," Sera says, shivering, but she allows him to walk her back to a safe distance.  
  
"Now. I believe we interrupted you," Dorian tells his father curtly.  
  
"I only. . ." Pavus sighs and dispels both barriers with a flourish of his hand. "You are a talented mage, my son, and a man of no dull wit. You would make a brilliant successor if only we could reach a compromise about this. . .matter."  
  
"And what makes carrying on your legacy so important that I should sacrifice my health, my mind or my happiness to your idea of a fucking compromise?" Despite his best efforts, Dorian finds himself shouting. Cole's pale form shrinks into a corner somewhere in his peripheral vision.  
  
"We must all think beyond ourselves, Dorian, for the sake of the Magisterium. Do you not think every last man there is equally as concerned with—preparing his sons and daughters for a seat—breaking them of their bad habits so that—"  
  
"Oh!" Dorian claps once, and brings his clasped hands to his lips. "Breaking me of my bad habits now," he adds, almost to himself.  
  
"Break this, you—!"  
  
"Sera." He faces her, and beckons Cole from his corner near the door. Sera reluctantly drops the arrow. "Cole. Will you two go back to camp, and let Toni know that I'll be back before dusk."  
  
"Sure, Dorian?" asks Sera cautiously, addressing him by his given name for perhaps the first time.  
  
"Sera, let's _go_ ," Cole says. "It's different this time. New."  
  
That it is. "Well. Thank you both for this."  
  
"Yeah, you're buyin' a round when we get back to Skyhold, so. For creepy too!" Sera grabs Cole and the two make their exit. The little bell on top of the tavern door jingles pleasantly.  
  
"Come." Father makes a sweeping gesture in the direction of one of the tables. "Why don't we sit down?"

 

* * *

  
  
Toni is on the edge of her bed, trying her weight on the injured leg when Dorian comes in. She leaps up to embrace him, smelling strongly of elfroot balm.  
  
"Don't—jump on that leg, fool girl!" he cries, even as her warrior's grip knocks the wind out of him.  
  
"It's healed! Sera bribed an apostate in Redcliffe to come and look at it. I was so worried they'd need to cart me back to Skyhold on a. . ." she trails off, but quickly snaps to attention. "But you! How did it go? Sera tells me your—"  
  
"The lord magister himself made an appearance, yes."  
  
"With no retainer?"  
  
"As near as I could tell he traveled here alone. One must applaud him for that, at least."  
  
Toni looks at a spot in the distance. "I think he must care for you more than you say."  
  
"Or he's made a big investment with me and he's not above risking his arse to protect it."  
  
"Cynic."  
  
"I think I have every right." Dorian invites himself onto the bed, and Toni sits down next to him. "We talked like equals. He was trying for once to come to an agreement, instead of explaining why he was right."  
  
"Oh?"  
  
"Father had the conviction that he was doing grim but necessary work, and that I would thank him eventually. I made it abundantly clear, I think, that I would not."  
  
Toni shakes her head and lays her long braid over one shoulder. "I can't imagine how he could defend his decisions."  
  
"I can. It takes one to know one, I suppose. For him to even _consider_ that perhaps the ends do not justify the means. . .it's monumental."  
  
"You're smiling."  
  
"He's misguided, Antonia! I'm sure he thought he was being Father of the Year when he offered me any number of male escorts to keep at the estate so long as they remained out of the public eye, but I—"  
  
Toni dissolves into helpless laughter at his side, and Dorian can't help but join in.  
  
"Oh," Toni wipes away tears, "I shouldn't laugh. That's horrible. I truly think I'd cry if my parents suggested something of that order to me."  
  
"He was so cavalier about it, like we were negotiating a market price. I don't want to settle for— _trysts_ until I die a lonely old lecher."  
  
"And if you found someone? I mean. I'd never want Sera to think I was ashamed of her. Having to keep all your relationships clandestine. . .it'd be unfair toward you and your lover."  
  
"Exactly! Though, how deeply can I really fault the Lord Magister? I think the concept of romantic love must be entirely foreign to him," Dorian scoffs.  
  
Toni hums thoughtfully. "Are you going to be in touch?"  
  
"I. . .yes, I suppose I did promise that."  
  
"You sound unhappy."  
  
"Well, it's not a bloody storybook ending, is it?"  
  
"No." She has the gall to sound disappointed. "Is that what you were hoping for?"  
  
"I imagine it's what you were hoping for, living vicariously through me as you are." Dorian stands.  
  
"I–!"  
  
"Yes? Is it about your grand reunion with your family? You fell asleep before we could pin a date the other night—"  
  
"Kindly stop bringing that up," says Toni testily. "I mean it. I happen to think you've done extraordinarily well for yourself, Dorian, simply for making the effort. And if I didn't make that clear enough, you have my sincere apologies."  
  
"Oh. Well—that's quite all right."  
  
She fidgets. "Though. . .if I should. . .happen to meet with my family at some point in the near future. . ." Toni takes a shuddering breath. "Would you accompany me?"  
  
"It would be my honor. Ah, provided that I don't break my leg on the way. . .by some cruel twist of fate."  
  
She chuckles and throws her pillow at him. "Arse."

**Author's Note:**

> i was thinking of bundling this and my other fics. toni and dorian's gay adventures. lmfao
> 
> (part one, which i foolishly orphaned, here: http://archiveofourown.org/works/10262120)


End file.
